Waldorf,
or Steiner education is a 90 year old educational tradition, of European
origin, that in a number of respects differs from public education. Today
(2014), it is practiced at some 1,000 independent schools world wide, appr. 146 of them in North America.

In addition, the
Alliance for Public Waldorf Education has a membership of 37 public Waldorf methods schools in the US. There are also 102 Waldorf
Kindergartens that are members of
WECAN
(Waldorf Early Childhood Association of North America).

For a number of decades
now, there exists an abundance of published literature, including in English,
on Waldorf education, Rudolf
Steiner, and anthroposophy as the general
philosophical basis of Waldorf education, and much information has also
been available for a number of years on the internet.

In spite of this,
some people find for various reasons that they have not been informed enough
about and understood the nature and basis of Waldorf education, when putting
their child or children in a Waldorf school.

This has been a problem
especially to some parents with an outspoken secular humanist orientation,
who have felt their philosophical world view challenged by Waldorf education,
with anthroposophy as its spiritual philosophical basis, and to some parents
with a fundamentalist Christian orientation.

Anthroposophy as
such, as the philosophical basis for Waldorf education, is not taught in
a theoretical sense, nor as a subject, at the overwhelming majority of
Waldorf schools world wide.

In spite of this,
some people have developed more or less intense, long term negative reaction
for different reasons, at times in an obsessive direction. Such people
have reacted by cultivating and publishing not only different forms of
criticism but also a number of myths about Waldorf education, anthroposophy
and Rudolf Steiner as the founder of both Waldorf education and anthroposophy.